Our Continuing Story

I haven't disappeared, just been reading. I meant to advance write some posts this weekend, but have fallen to the deadly blogger's block.*

The Hakawati is definitely proving to be an interesting book, and I look forward to writing a review when I've finished it. I'll put some of my thoughts here too. I'm currently about 250 pages into it, and would probably have finished it already but for a few things. One, since I want to write a review for the VQR competition, I'm only reading it when I can REALLY focus on it, and take notes as needed. Two, it's an enormous hardcover book, so I'm not carrying it around with me. I'm only reading it at home. The unwieldiness has long been my problem with hardcovers, and this one is the size of a small dictionary. Not too small a dictionary though, still a pretty big one. It's about the size of the Cryptonomicon hardcover, for those of you familiar with Neal Stephenson.

This has resulted in a slight variation on my typical, two-four books at once reading habit. Right now I have a traveling book, and the home book. There have been several traveling books, all slim paperback volumes suitable for tucking into a pocket and whipping out when the situation calls for words in a line. There's also the half-finished poetry book sitting on my coffee table, staring at me, and the recently started short story collection telling me that if I finish it, or am seen reading it in public, I will be magically transformed into a PBR drinking hipster (yuck!). Still, I can't resist its siren song because of my deep and abiding love for anything written/drawn by Art Spiegelman. I saw him speak in 2002 and will never forget it. My eternal regret is that: one, I didn't talk to him personally and two, I did not have anything on me for him to sign.

*Note: Blogger's block should not be confused with Tetris. I've only played a little bit of Tetris this week.